Free Range KidsHow to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)2015-08-02T15:13:07Zhttp://www.freerangekids.com/feed/atom/WordPresslskenazyhttp://www.freerangekids.com/?p=154572015-08-02T15:13:07Z2015-08-02T15:13:07ZWhat’s particularly wonderful about this outdoor field trip is how it gives kids who aren’t “good” or successful in the classroom another place to show who they are. It was sent to us by filmmaker Alastrair Humphreys, who writes:

Two years ago, teacher Mrs Monaghan took her class on an overnight microadventure (video here).

Now, for their “Leavers’ Treat”, the children asked if they could go on another microadventure. I went along again to film how they got on.

This week sort of turns out to have a theme: Dealing with life’s vast unpredictability, and all the fear, guilt and blame that tag along with this daunting fact. So here’s a note from a mom who requests our help:

Dear Free-Range Kids:

I consider myself a fairly laid back mama, and I’m always of the opinion that bumps and bruises (and maybe broken bones) are part of growing up. But a few days ago I was holding my third child, a 9 month-old baby, as I was climbing some stairs, and I tripped and fell and she hit her head very hard- enough to fracture her skull and require immediate brain surgery.

The good news: she’s doing really well and they expect a full recovery. I’m beyond thankful and cannot believe she appears to be free of brain damage, given the injury.

But now that we’re back home I am following her around like a crazy person, so scared she’ll fall or bump her head. My heart stops every time she tries to pull up on a chair or climb something. She’s a typical active 9 month old who wants to explore everything. The surgeon who fixed her told me, in no uncertain terms, that she CANNOT get another head injury. Like, ever. He reminded me that damage from this stuff is “cumulative” and a second injury could be devastating.

How have other parents dealt with this kind of concern, post-accident? How can I feel like I’m being vigilant and keeping her away from harm without hovering 3 inches away from her for the next 18 years? I feel like all my relaxed attitudes about parenting I’ve established in the past 5 years have flown out the window, and I am going to be a nervous wreck with her forever. God forbid she wants to play sports or rock climb or something like that in the future.

Thank you so much. — Anna

I replied: Anna — first of all, so glad about the recovery. What you and your family have been through — wow. But secondly — and I think you know this– being “right there” didn’t prevent the first injury. So…so…we have a lot less control, and fate has a lot more, than we imagine.

I wonder if, after some time has passed — like even a year, perhaps — you can talk to a different surgeon about whether your child can do anything again ever. The doctor’s decree sounds both draconian and a little punitive, just seeing it here. Anyway, I can put this on my site and I’m sure we’ll both gain some new insight. Meantime, good luck on all fronts – L.

Here are some thoughts from readers on how to keep a rare but horrific danger in perspective, especially when tragedies like the murder of Maddy Middleton become part of the weave of everyday life (and Facebook posts), no matter how removed we may be from the town or time when they occurred:

Sometimes, things just… happen. And no one saw it coming. And no one had any warning.

And so there’s no lesson to be learned, in terms of “If only we had done x, then y wouldn’t have happened.”

But there is a lesson: that we can’t always know what’s coming, so we just have to live with certain random events that defy logic or understanding.

And this, from a while back:

Airline disasters are like strangers abducting children. They are events that get a lot of air time on the news when they happen because they are so rare. Just like we can name kids who have been abducted and killed by strangers (Adam Walsh, Etan Patz, Polly Klaas), we can also name flights which ended in disaster (Pan Am flight 103 that exploded over Lockerbie, TWA flight 800 from New York that exploded over the Atlantic Ocean). Because these events are so rare, we end up mentioning aviation disasters and kidnappings that happened many years ago.

What never gets mentioned on the news are all of the millions of people who fly every day who make it to their destinations. The millions of kids who walk to school, take a public bus, or ride their bikes different places are also never mentioned.

“It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions.

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We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding….Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all.

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They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.”

Parents who take the Maddy tragedy as proof that they can never let their kids venture outside unsupervised will simply insist that their job is to prevent their child’s abduction and murder.

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And since there’s no way to prove that keeping a child under constant supervision is NOT what’s preventing their murder, these parents will feel like they are in control. And THAT is the most pervasive misperception in these modern times: That if you exercise enough control, nothing can go wrong. And that if something DOES go wrong, it just proves you weren’t controlling enough.

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That smug belief blames the grieving, and gives unearned conceit to those who are not. – L.

Tomorrow or in the next few days I will publish some wise things people have written here as comments over the years — things that can perhaps help us keep some perspective on parenting and crime and childhood while we absorb the sorrow.

Dear Free-Range Kids: I am from Germany and what I read on your webpage is really shocking for me. How did American parents get so paranoid and CPS professionals support that! I am a social worker and a mother of a 4 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. I work for the city of Regensburg at the youth department. Our CPS would NEVER even think about investigating Free-Range kids. Parents who are no giving their kids the possibility to play outside, go to playgrounds, walk to school are much more likely to be referred to CPS for counseling than Free-Range parents. The parents here who are helicoptering (Americans would probably see our helicoptering as Free-Range) are considered to be paranoid and not normal by most of the people.

Part of my job is to ensure our city provides a healthy and good environment for kids to grow up. So our city has me professionally investigate how child-friendly the neighborhoods are and make suggestions how to improve. We work really hard to provide playgrounds in all neighborhoods that children can and are supposed to go to by them selves from age 6 on! We check the streets to help make them safe so children can go to places alone! All 6 year olds are walking or biking or taking the bus to school! The parents only accompany them the first few days to teach them how to do it. We organize volunteers for difficult crossroads who stand there before school and when ever the kids come they help them cross the street. Our whole system is there to make sure that kids can go alone to school or music lessons or playgrounds or friends.

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That is always our goal and it is the norm and our kids do grow up healthy, socialized, good at school and safe! There are more kids hurt in car accidents sitting in the back of a car than walking around by themselves even though most kids walk to school by themselves. Our kids even take public transportation by themselves like buses and subways.

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The most shocking news are for me the ones about the mother having such trouble because the kid was alone in the yard. Our kids play in the garden alone for hours! My son started playing alone in the garden when he was one year old! He loves it. When our kids need something, they know where to find us and can come. In the mean time we can take care of our household etc., and of course we check on them. The frequency depending on their age.

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I wished your Police and CPS would professionally understand what it means to raise healthy and responsible children. I cannot believe that they are supporting this paranoia. Such professionals cannot really believe their way is the only right way. If that was true it would mean that all Europeans are neglecting their children and harming them and endangering them….

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I wish you good luck with you cause and I hope sincerely that Americans stop depriving children of all the Learning opportunities of a normal and free and loved childhood . Children are persons not puppets or prisoners. If I can help your cause by providing information from abroad I am happy to do so.

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Sinseriously,

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Anna Schledorm

Yes, I know “sinseriously” is not a word, but sincere + serious just seemed perfect. It also seems perfect to expect kids to play outside on their own, the same way we did just a generation or so ago. – L

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Regensberg, Germany, where the letter -writer allowed her 1 year old to play in the yard by himself. (Of course, she would check on him.)

Hey folks — Researchers at the University of California-Irvine are studying how people perceive risk. They need people to take their survey and have asked the Free-Range community to join in. I just took it myself. It’s basically brief descriptions of situations when a child is left alone. You rate how safe they are. The whole thing takes five minutes.

This letter I got yesterday reminds me of one of the most thorough, fascinating, damning study I’ve ever read about where the “No touch” policy comes from (and why it is unnecessary, and how it actually makes us all MORE afraid for our kids):

So those sex crazed pedophiles have invaded the Girl Scouts now apparently. My daughter went to horse camp this summer and even though the girls are as young as 5 and out in the heat and sun of Tucson the female leaders are unable to help the girls put sunscreen on or help them with their riding helmets because that would require them to…. Gasp… TOUCH THEM! That’s right they are not allowed to even touch their face or the back of their necks or any other hard to reach place. Instead they stand in front of the girl and put the sunscreen on theirselves while the girl watches so she can mimic their movements and see where they are missing. Girl by girl. Talk about a waste of time and a great way to get lots of little girls with sunburns on the back of their necks or tips of their ears. You can’t even sign a release giving permission for them to touch them. That is so crazy!

“Crazy” is literally true. This remarkable paper by New Zealand professor Alison Jones explains that the fear of counselors or teachers touching kids grew out of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. When a well-regarded study seemed to “prove” that 5.5 out of 10,000 children would be sexually molested in early childhood ed, drastic precautions were deemed necessary. But, Jones writes, “Not only was [the researchers’] methodology very doubtful (by their own admission) but they also included as their flagship teacher sexual abuse example the infamous McMartin day care ritual abuse case in California, which was still in court at the time of the publication of their research.” While the researchers “were happy to assume in their research report that the McMartin daycare staff were guilty of abusing ‘hundreds’ of children, all staff involved in the case were in fact later acquitted.”

Too late! The idea had already taken hold that students were being “groomed” for pedophilia left and right. The upshot? Jones interviewed teachers in her native New Zealand:

“I’ll touch a child only when I really have to – on the arm or back maybe. Or in an emergency. And even then maybe not, if there is a female staff member there she will always do it. Never the trunk area. Not the head, that is culturally insensitive… Nowhere, really! (laugh) It could easily be misconstrued….” (first year male teacher)

“Yesterday we had an interschool game and a boy did so well I wanted to congratulate him and I went up and instead of awhi-ing him [gesture of arm around the child’s shoulders], I was standoffish.” (male principal)

“When a child is really inconsolable, sobbing, from name-calling or something, and they just need an arm around them, you just can’t…You are just aware that it is not part of the protocol, so you get other kids to make them feel better, or you try to distract them somehow.” (experienced female teacher)

“I used to cuddle the kids. I wouldn’t now. If a child is upset I’ll get some other children to comfort them. “(experienced female teacher)

“Hands in pockets. They grab hold of your hands, so fold your arms….” (male first year teacher)

Jones writes that in a culture completely obsessed with risk avoidance, this new practice may seem like “common sense,” but it’s not. Common sense is what the teachers did BEFORE these new rules. The rules are hysteria made physical. And ironically — tragically — rather than reassuring parents, they are “reinforcing the idea that teachers are potential abusers who must be watched at all times.”

Here’s a a piece in Canada’s Globe & Mail by teacher Dionne LaPointe-Bakota, about her 3-year-old Malcolm’s “wildness.” Malcolm growls and chases and brandishes sticks. Onlookers who see him always say something like, “My, you have your hands full!” She wonders if they really mean she should make her boy act more like a stereotypical girl:

Malcolm and I met some friends in the park after their son’s music/art/dance class (I can’t remember which). Malcolm scouted out a stick as soon as we arrived and began to swing it around. I asked him to be careful and left it at that.

My friends’ son wanted to join in the fun and picked up a stick of his own, but as soon as he did his parents told him to put the stick down. He did.

I felt mildly uncomfortable. Should I ask Malcolm to put down his stick? That would be like asking him to put away his spirit, so I did nothing.

The children played, hiding in the trees and bushes, chasing each other and creating that delightful chaos that children will.

Once again, my friends’ son picked up a stick. Once again his parents said, “Put the stick down,” and once again he did.

I could see he wanted so badly to brandish his stick, to join in the swashbuckling, the gunfire and the battle that raged in their minds. He joined in as best he could, but this experience stuck with me.

I replayed that afternoon in my mind many times. Had I done the right thing? What was those parents’ problem with sticks, anyway? We all want our children to be safe and to treat others kindly, but are safety and gentleness the only things we want for our children?

Read the whole thing here (it’s got a lot of great points) and ponder whether we are asking for too much stereotypical girl behavior from stereotypical boys. – L

In an essay in today’s Washington Post, “Raising free-spirited black children in a world set on punishing them,” Stacia Brown sounds frustrated with the Free-Range Kids movement. She dearly wishes African-American kids could go outside and Free-Range without having to worry about actual discrimination and danger. (Me too!) And she is particularly angered that often low income African-American families who can’t or don’t supervise their kids every single second are not given the benefit of the doubt by Child Protective Services:

Skenazy’s site is filled with stories of parents whose families have run afoul of Child Protective Services by allowing their children to walk or play unaccompanied. Race and class aren’t often mentioned in the posts, but they should be. Those factors often make the difference between a successfully closed CPS investigation and a case left open pending a felony charge, which results in a loss of employment, which results in further inability to afford safe, reliable childcare. Skenazy’s blog recently covered Laura Browder’s case without referencing that the family was black (though it’s discussed with some nuance in the comments section). That detail matters. Black mothers — especially those who are poor or single — are disproportionately criminalizedfor their parenting choices.

There is no such thing as a free-range kid in low-income black families. They are more likely to be labeled as “abandoned” and “neglected” than as free.

She’s absolutely right. When I interviewed Diane Redleaf, founder of the Family Defense Center in Chicago, a non-profit that fights to keep families from being torn apart by CPS, she told me “most [of our clients] are impoverished and many are immigrants and minorities.”

All the more reason, then, to fight for the right of all families to be free of government interference when it comes to how we raise our kids.

That’s a goal I think Brown and all Free-Rangers share. “That the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” So said President Kennedy. And the rights of all families are diminished when the cops or CPS rule that any unsupervised child is a neglected child.

We all want to raise our kids the best we can, without threat of criminal or civil action simply because, for reasons of choice or circumstance, we cannot conform to some insane ideal of parenting.